more crop planning (it’s endless)

Before I ordered my seeds, I brought my crop list to Ellen Frost, co-owner and designer at Local Color Flowers (which we all affectionately call Locoflo). She graciously looked at everything I plan to grow, and we discussed how my crop plan can complement wedding trends…

For example, I have decided to grow carnations next season. Cliche or boring? Not at all, according to Ellen… Most florists can buy carnations shipped from South America wholesale for a dirt cheap (pardon the pun) price. But Ellen buys ONLY local flowers, which means she hardly ever gets carnations (most of her growers don’t grow them because they’re so cheap to buy elsewhere).

So anyway, I picked out a couple of carnations to grow for next season. One of the colors I chose was a deep purple color…

But Ellen pointed out that carnations bloom in the early to mid summer, and there are very few brides who opt for dark purple during those months. Rather, brides prefer pinks, yellows, and whites. So I’m growing those colors instead. I’ll do some dark purple dahlias in the fall to make up for it, as those colors are super popular towards the end of the season.

Ellen also encouraged me to grow both types of Dusty Miller (originally I had planned to just pick one):

I got to show her some things I am really, really excited about growing (plant nerdinessssss)… such as tons of lavender, ornamental peppers, atriplex, feverfew, and okay really everything on my crop list excites me. I will grow some things that I grew this past season that worked well, such as coleus:

And Lamb’s Ear

and calendula

(the coleus, lamb’s ear, calendula, and the basil bouquet at the top of the post are Butterbee Farm photos, taken by Abby Logsdon)

Oh, also, farm update: we finished putting up the fence, and now all we need to do is connect the solar powered battery to charge it up. I also managed to move the shed in my parents’ backyard to the farm– that is, I hired some very friendly contractors to do it with their fancy pickup truck and shed-moving-thingies. Progress!

Happy Thanksgiving!!! Don’t forget to order your Thanksgiving centerpieces from Local Color Flowers!